Tony Corkett (Fareham) won the Open section of the Hampshire Individual Championship for a record 10th time, beating Marshall Thompson's record. He obtained 4.5 points from this 6 round event and finished half a point ahead of Keith Gregory (Fareham), Matt Chapman (Fareham) and David Fowler (Hamble) who shared the second prize. James Chilton (Basingstoke) won the under 160 grading prize in this section.

Joe Coburn (Fareham) won the major section for players graded under 160with 5 points finishing a point ahead of Gillian Moore (Southampton) and Paul Northcott (Emsworth) who share second prize. The under 140 grading prize in this section was shared by Chris Smith (Fareham), Mark Stone (Petts Wood) and Paul Hurn (Southampton) all with three points.

Tim Cutter (Farnborough), Richard Slade (Chandlers Ford), 7 year old Shreyas Royal (Hampstead) and Martyn Maber (Taunton) shared first place in the minor section for graded under 125 with Cutter winning the trophy awarded to the highest placed Hampshire player on a tie break. The under 100 grading prize in this section was shared by Rob Davies (Fareham) and Ryan Cheung (Southampton University) who obtained 4 points, finishing only half a point behind the four winners of the section.

And thanks to the players and other organisers from one of the controllers!

I think Malcolm has identified the juniors. Manoj and Mansa did play in the last round, it was the correct pairing and also impossible to avoid, as they had managed to play everyone else in the score group.

Pairings did cause some headaches, as I decided to do manual pairings as the entry wasn't enormous, but I think even the computer would be scratching its head sometimes...

For Round 5 of the Open, we had 4 players on 3/4, then 4 on 2/4.
The players on 3 and colour sequences were
1) WBW-
2) BWBB
7) -WBB
11) BWBW

That looks ok, then we notice that 11 has asked for a half-point bye. Then we notice that 1 has already played 2 and 7, so the top board pairing has to be between 2 and 7. At the end of my 14-hour day, I managed to pair it as 7-2, then realised next morning it should be 2-7. Having one white out of 4 is slightly better than 1 out of 5. Some polite discussion ensued with the players. Anyway, they shrugged and got on with it and black won!

I recall Jack Speigel telling me that at his 7-round Southend event, he once had two black seekers on 3/3, and two white seekers on 2.5/3, and (with their agreement) floated all of them so they got the right colours (and the ratings were about right as well). Of course that was halfway through the tournament, whereas my problem was in the penultimate round. His solution was practical, although against the rules (now). It wasn't an option here anyway as the following group was a whole point behind.

You usually get a few people thanking the arbiters/controllers at the end of the event, but talking to my colleagues, I think about 25 % of the players actually took the trouble to come up and say thanks, which is impressively high. And we only had one player who just disappeared during the tournament.

Kevin Thurlow wrote:Pairings did cause some headaches, as I decided to do manual pairings as the entry wasn't enormous, but I think even the computer would be scratching its head sometimes...

For Round 5 of the Open, we had 4 players on 3/4, then 4 on 2/4.
The players on 3 and colour sequences were
1) WBW-
2) BWBB
7) -WBB
11) BWBW

That looks ok, then we notice that 11 has asked for a half-point bye. Then we notice that 1 has already played 2 and 7, so the top board pairing has to be between 2 and 7. At the end of my 14-hour day, I managed to pair it as 7-2, then realised next morning it should be 2-7. Having one white out of 4 is slightly better than 1 out of 5. Some polite discussion ensued with the players. Anyway, they shrugged and got on with it and black won!

Your final pairing is, 2-7, is correct under the Unified British Swiss Pairing Rules.

However, under the FIDE Swiss Pairing Rules, both 2 and 7 would have to downfloat, along with 1, as both 2 and 7 have had the same colour in each of the two previous rounds. You may recall that that issue arose during the recent Asian Senior Championships, which we were both following for other reasons.

In the last round this Regulation doesn't apply, so 2-7 would be correct even under the FIDE Rules had the situation arisen in a five round event (although 11 would probably not then have been allowed a half-point bye).

Kevin Thurlow wrote:You usually get a few people thanking the arbiters/controllers at the end of the event, but talking to my colleagues, I think about 25 % of the players actually took the trouble to come up and say thanks, which is impressively high.

It is indeed.

In 1985, when I was an arbiter at a weekend congress for the first time, 3 players thanked me out of 65. Some years later, the late Richard Furness told me that he had never had so high a proportion thanking him.

I think that in this respect things have improved during the last thirty years.

Not according to the Chief Arbiters of Scotland and Wales, who when I last asked a few years ago, used different pairing systems. One used the Scottish Variation, and one used the English Variation. I remember questioning it in Torquay 2013, when one said my pairing was right, and the other said it was wrong. Turned out it depended on which Variation you use...

There has been an amendment to the results in the Open section which was won by Tony Corkett.

Second place was a tie between David Fowler and Keith Gregory, with Matt Chapman winning the
Under-175 Grading Prize.

I think with the pairings each case has to =be treated on its' own merits, but I have had the issue in the Chandlers Ford chess club internal tournament where Manoj, Mansa and mother Maha all play in a fairly small field. Manoj has in fact performed quite well in this and has recorded victories against two of this weekend;'s prize winners.

"Not according to the Chief Arbiters of Scotland and Wales, who when I last asked a few years ago, used different pairing systems. One used the Scottish Variation, and one used the English Variation."

Which one used the Scottish variation?

I was using a CAA print out, which didn't seem to cover the specific case, so I attempted to use common sense, i.e. 3 blacks from 4 was better than 4 blacks from 5. One player finished with a 2-3 split, the other with 3-3. The other way would have guaranteed a 2-4 split for one player.

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
I was using a CAA print out, which didn't seem to cover the specific case, ...

Hi Kevin,

I think 16.1 covers the case you mention.

I have no idea who the Scottish Chief arbiter is. The pairing rules are the same in both countries. I know of one area where there is a slight difference in interpretation but it isn't a Scotland v England thing. I'll leave those to be settled on Friday.

I remember the issue in question was the sort of thing that should be enshrined in the written regulation, rather than open to interpretation. Both parties were insistent that their pairing was the correct one.

But I did misspeak when I referred to the Chief Arbiter of Scotland. I assumed Scotland had one.